Hedge funds this year have been roiled by a series of heavy fines and a record $56 billion in customer redemptions after feeble returns. Now these embattled investment vehicles, once so popular with rich investors, have stooped to new lows — enlisting, in one case, the sick and poor with an elaborate get-rich-quick scheme, according to federal regulators.

The mayhem has the industry in shock mode. Last week, it had to fess up to some funds aggressively mishandling fees and padding expense accounts.

The black eyes appear as traumatized hedge funds come to terms with outflows that could wipe out as much as 25 percent of their assets in the next 12 months, according to an estimate by Blackstone President Tony James.

Hedge funds, one of the biggest components of the alternative space, manage about $3 trillion, and they charge some of the steepest fees.

“In my experience, bad things tend to happen when people are having money issues,” said compliance vet Todd Cipperman of Cipperman Compliance Services. “So you do worry if hedge funds are underperforming. There is a potential for them to look at other sources of income.”

According to the regulators, there’s been no shortage of these other income sources lately for hedgies and other private funds.

Last week, for example, WL Ross & Co., the private equity firm snapped up by Invesco from billionaire investor Wilbur Ross in 2006, agreed to pay a $2.3 million civil penalty in a brawl over fees.

In addition, the Securities and Exchange Commission said WL Ross voluntarily agreed to repay about $11.8 million to some WL Ross funds. The SEC said the fees charged investors were not properly disclosed. Ross continues as the chairman of the firm.

Through the decade up to 2011, investors paid $10.4 million in management fees that should not have been charged, the SEC charged.

Through the decade up to 2011, investors paid $10.4 million in management fees that should not have been charged, the SEC charged.

Earlier in the week, in an SEC action, Apollo Global Management agreed to cough up $52.7 million to settle charges. Among the most egregious, say analysts, were accusations Apollo charged its “portfolio companies” certain monitoring fees without suitable disclosure.

What got the most public attention were charges by the SEC that a former Apollo partner — identified by The Post’s Josh Kosman as 40-year-old Ali Rashid — racked up $200,000 in personal charges and various expenses to Apollo funds. Rashid reportedly expensed the funds for flying his girlfriend around the world.

The prize for the most unusual customer service, say analysts, may belong to New York-based hedge fund Eden Arc Capital Management. The firm is owned by Donald “Jay” Lathen, a former managing director and co-head of energy mergers and acquisitions at Citigroup, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Lathen’s firm shelled out $10,000 apiece to terminally ill patients just so he could put their names on joint brokerage accounts.

In return for $600,000 in payouts, Eden Arc had pocketed $9.5 million in profits by the time the bond-buying scheme was uncovered, the SEC alleges.

When a patient died, the SEC said, Lathen allegedly redeemed investments by falsely representing to issuers that he and the terminally ill individual were joint account owners.

“People were hugging Lathen and crying on the phone to Lathen after they received the $10,000,” said one person familiar with the case. “These were people in financial need.”

But that’s not how regulators assessed the case. The issuers were misled and harmed — as were, potentially, other investors indirectly, say analysts, from $100 million in early redemptions.